Latvia Has a New Leader, as Fears of Russia and Migration Rise

RIGA, Latvia — Two months after Latvia’s first female prime minister quit in frustration, this small but strategically located Baltic nation has a new government — but only after a drawn-out process in which a string of politicians declined the leader’s job.

Latvia, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south, regained independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The three Baltic states — which joined both the European Union and NATO in 2004 — have taken on renewed significance for the West as a bulwark against a resurgent Russia, particularly since the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014.

The RAND Corporation, an American research organization, found in a recent report that if Russia were to invade, it could reach the outskirts of Riga, the capital of Latvia, and Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, in five days at most.

The United States recently pledged to quadruple its military spending in Eastern Europe, and NATO has called on member states to devote at least 2 percent of gross domestic product to military spending — a threshold the new government has vowed to meet by 2018. Unlike Lithuania and Estonia, however, it has resisted making military service mandatory, calling conscription too expensive and difficult. On Friday, Latvia announced it had sent a shipment of aid to Ukraine as another sign of its solidarity with the country, which most Latvians see as a victim of Russian aggression.

Image

The new cabinet of Latvia posed with Maris Kucinskis, front row, third from left, at Parliament on Thursday.CreditValda Kalnina/European Pressphoto Agency

In Latvia — which has a substantial ethnic Russian minority that includes Mayor Nils Usakovs of Riga — migration has emerged as a politically charged issue. An agreement with the European Union to take in 531 refugees over two years has been a political flashpoint in this nation of just under two million people — even though only six of the refugees have arrived so far.

The new prime minister, Latvia’s 13th since it gained independence, is Maris Kucinskis, a 54-year-old economist and former mayor of a town known for a glassmaking factory and a well-regarded craft brewery nearby. Unlike the brewery, Mr. Kucinskis is a relative unknown.

“I was a dark horse,” Mr. Kucinskis told reporters on Thursday, as Parliament approved his new cabinet, by a vote of 60 to 32. “Up to now, I had not been visible. I had not been among the political stars.” He added: “I have never aimed for the prime minister’s post, and somehow all the circumstances were in favor of my being a candidate.”

Mr. Kucinskis, a member of an unusual center-right party made up of an alliance of farmers and environmentalists, needed help from two coalition partners, one of which is a far-right, anti-immigration party, the National Alliance. Though the parties making up the country’s governing coalition have not changed, the National Alliance pressed Mr. Kucinskis to take a harder stance against immigration than his predecessor, Laimdota Straujuma, as a condition of its support.

“That was our biggest discussion between our party and the new prime minister,” said Janis Dombrava, a lawmaker from the National Alliance.

Janis Ikstens, a political scientist at the University of Latvia, said that Mr. Kucinskis is closer to the National Alliance than his predecessor was. “I’m not saying he’ll be dancing to the tune of the National Alliance, but he will be someone who takes them more seriously than Ms. Straujuma did,” Mr. Ikstens said.

The new government said its priorities included improvements in economic performance, national security, education and health care. The country’s population is both aging and shrinking, the result of its young people moving to Western Europe for better economic opportunities, a problem the welfare minister, Janis Reirs, described as a priority in an interview televised on Friday.

The process of getting a new government was lengthy. Ms. Straujuma announced her resignation in December, but stayed on during the protracted search for her successor. A number of politicians turned down entreaties by President Raimonds Vejonis, a fellow member of Mr. Kucinskis’s political bloc, the Union of Greens and Farmers, to take on the job.

Soon after Mr. Kucinskis accepted the job of prime minister last month and agreed to work on forming a coalition, Mr. Vejonis was hospitalized for an operation to treat a heart infection. The prospect of a long recovery has stirred speculation that he might have to step down, but spokesmen for the president have said the operation was a success and they do not expect him to step down.

The largest party in the governing coalition is Unity, and its leader, Solvita Aboltina, aimed to become prime minister. She lacked sufficiently wide support to clinch Mr. Vejonis’s nomination, but retained enough sway to keep other members of her party from vying for the job.

Inguna Sudraba, a member of an opposition party that declined to join Mr. Kucinskis’s coalition, predicted that the new government would be as fragile as its predecessor. “Will the shift of ministers from one ministry to another bring life to the government’s frail body?” she asked during the debate in Parliament on Thursday over Mr. Kucinskis’s new cabinet. “I doubt it.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of refugees whom Latvia had agreed to accept over two years. The number is 531, not 776.